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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have heard this term come up a lot here and always dismissed it as not my mother. I read an article with a checklist someone posted about signs your mother is a narcissistic mother and she checked off so many I stopped reading. I finally started reading the book 'Will I ever be good enough?' by Karyl McBride and it is alarming how much of it is dead on.

I just started reading this so I am not very far in. Curious for others who have read this or recognized this in their mother, how did it impact things for you? How is your relationship with your mother now? 
How is your relationship with yourself now?

I feel like I have spent my whole life walking around feeling like I was the only one and suddenly my eyes have opened and I found out I am not.[/quote]

I own the book also. It's devestating to realize you will never have the mother you want: caring, loving, kind, and concerned with your well-being. For too long, as with any abusive dynamic, I truly felt as though I was fatally flawed, and if only I were thinner/prettier/more successful/more interesting my mother would finally love me the way I'd always wanted and needed to be loved. Of course, no day like this came. If I was down on my luck, my mother would se to take some sort of perverse pleasure in that and/ or pile on. If I was riding high, my mother would make subtle commments to disparage me and my situation, or somehow compare herself (favorably) to me.

It took a long time to reaalize this unhealthy dynamic - she's my mom, and this is how I was raised, so for me it was normal to be constantly criticized, belittled, demeaned, or otherwise ignored. Having a daughter of my own is what it took for me to see how truly deranged she was and is.

I no longer have any sort of contact or relationship with her.

I'm sorry, OP. Good luck on your journey.[/quote]

I pretty much  know that you are my own DD in the future.

The thing is I am not a narcissistic mother.  My DD is overly sensitive and has severe anxiety.  My DD sees and hears almost everything in a critical way.  This has been going on since she was pretty much a toddler and she is now 11.  It's a personality trait. It can't be "fixed", it can only be managed and that management won't come until she is older and can recognize and think through situations.  My DD started seeing a therapist at age 6 and continues to see one.  The therapist helps my DD reframe situations in her mind.  It is very slowly helping but will take until adult hood likely for her to really be able to do this consistently on her own. Medication for the anxiety helps a bit but not as much as you think and it's tricky giving anxiety meds to a kid long term.

Here is an example of what my DD would say was critical.  She was about to go outside and put on black patent leather mary jane shoes. It was muddy and she planned to play in her friend's backyard.  I said in a very even, normal tone "Please change your shoes. Those won't work for the backyard because it's so muddy."  My DD looked absolutely crestfallen because she sees it as a criticism of her choice and something she has done wrong.  Neither is true and pointing that out won't help.  As a mother, seeing almost anything you say taken as criticism by your child and worrying how to best frame every single situation and every single word is absolutely emotionally draining.  It really sucks some days and yes, there are days when I lose my patience.  In fact, I had to start going to therapy because I really did believe I was a horrible person.  She is our only child but I imagine this situation when a mom has multiple kids must be even more difficult.

I think you and many other women who post on these type of threads often fail to realize that they too might actually be or had been overly sensitive and how incredibly emotionally draining it can be to deal with as a mother over the course of a childhood to young adulthood.  This is not something I would have understood myself until now that I am in the thick of it.
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